“Urgh!” I’m about to reach for the hem and tear the thing off over my head when I realize I’m not wearing anything underneath. Rebel has the look of a positively evil school kid when I glance up at him. He probably thought he was going to get a free show. I shove past him, into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. This room has fast become my safe place. How am I going to cope without a separate space to shut myself away when I need to? How am I—

“Hey, Soph?” Rebel’s muffled voice comes through the door. He sounds close, as though he’s leaning into the wood, speaking softly. There must only be a couple of inches between our bodies. I take a step back.

“What?”

“Y’all should know, ah’m definitely from ’Bama, baby. Any tahm y’all wan’ proof, alls y’all gotta do is holler.” He laughs as he moves away from the door, and I rip the T-shirt off over my head, growling under my breath.

The man is a nightmare.

REBEL

I started out murdering people from a very early age, killing my mother as I made my way out of her body. I took a twenty-two-year sabbatical after that. Since then, I’ve put a good many people in the ground. I like to console myself sometimes, when I’m feeling shitty about things, by reminding myself who those people were. They were violent, evil men. Men who made a living from the abuse of others much smaller or weaker than they were. Afghanistan left me with a zero tolerance for that kind of thing. It’s just not in me to let it slide.

As Sophia’s showering, I’m wondering whether I should start by telling her how many people I’ve shot or stabbed, y’know, just to get it out of the way. Shay comes by the cabin with the clothes I asked her to go buy first thing this morning; she’s weighted down by all the bags she’s holding in her arms, and she’s mighty pissed off. But then, that’s her usual expression: resting bitch face.

She doesn’t step foot inside the cabin. She just dumps everything at her feet, blowing her bright pink hair back out of her face. I can barely keep track of what color her hair is from week to week normally, but the fluoro pink seems to be sticking. Propping a hand on one hip, she casts a disgusted look at all of the bags at her feet and sighs. “You realize, this is probably very, very unhealthy, boss.”

“What is?’

“You, hoarding women’s clothing. I knew you were kinky, but I never knew you were balls-out weird.”

“They’re not for me, Shay.”

She lifts her eyebrows, nodding slowly. “Uh-huh. That’s what my Uncle Donald used to say. He likes to be called Princess now. He’s married to some guy down in the Florida Keys. Left his wife and kids. The works.”

“Shay?”

“Yeah?”

“Leave.”

She eyes the bags one more time. “None of that shit’s my style, y’know. If it ain’t right, you can’t blame me.” She saunters off the cabin porch and starts to climb the ridge back over to the compound, hips swinging as she goes. I’m pretty sure she knows I have a girl in here. She just doesn’t want confirmation. We had a thing once. A thing where I fucked her and she decided she wanted to be my old lady. That’s not how Widowers work out, though. I don’t need an old lady. I need an equal who will still shoot someone in the face for me if I need them to.

Shay was feisty from the moment I inked her into the club to the moment I sunk my dick into her on top of the pool table, but the moment she fell asleep on me I knew I’d made a horrible fucking mistake. She changed in a heartbeat. The fire I’d seen in her went out. She wanted to spoon and shit. She wanted to be subservient in all things, and while I do like that in the bedroom, I don’t wanna have an empty fucking vessel following me around, day in, day out, waiting for me to tell them what to fucking do.

I gather up the bags Shay left behind and carry them inside the cabin, tipping out the contents one by one. Winter in Alabama isn’t that cold. I told Shay to pick up thin sweaters and jeans. T-shirts and dressy tops. Some boots and some lighter shoes. I leave the last bag zipped up—a garment bag, presumably containing the eveningwear I told Shay to get. I shove everything into the duffel bag I’ve already packed with my stuff, folding the garment bag neatly on top, and then I wait for Sophia to come out of the bathroom.

I’m getting seriously fucking impatient by the time she eventually creeps out, wrapped in a towel. She stares at me, defiance written all over her face, and says, “I don’t have anything else to—” She sees the underwear, pair of jeans, light shirt and Chuck Taylors I’ve left out for her on the bed and shuts up. I pick up the duffel and sling it over my shoulder.

“I’ll be outside.” I’m feeling pretty damn smug as I sit on the steps outside the cabin, waiting for her. I don’t know why I’m taking such perverse, intense pleasure in one-upping her, but I am. It might have something to do with the fact that no one ever questions me. No one ever challenges me, and it feels fucking awesome.

I feel less awesome when my cell phone starts ringing and I find Maria Rosa’s name on the caller display, though. “Fuck!” I should have called her already to tell her which of her options we were going with. I definitely should not have left it so long that she is now calling me.

“Maria Rosa,” I say. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.”

“I assume you know how much I like waiting, uh?” She sounds bored, but she must be fuming. She’s about to get even madder. “What have you decided, my love? What are you offering in return for my help?”